Home Work
by fragrantfields
Summary: Major Crimes' Sharon Raydor and Rust Beck-Rusty gets an upsetting homework assignment chock full of unpleasant reminders of how much he's not like his classmates (warning: realities of foster care for a teen)


For a minute, she was back fifteen years: the slam of the front door, the_wumph_of a heavy backpack slung onto the couch. _A teenager had had a bad day_. She'd thought those days were behind her…until Rusty came along.

He stood near the entryway to the kitchen, half in, half out as usual, like he was waiting to gauge if she wanted to deal with him or not. Sharon knew if she acted busy, if she didn't make eye contact, he'd say "Hey, Sharon" and go back to his room. He'd become an expert at reading body language, picking up subtle cues about what others wanted.

He'd had to.

She turned towards him, hands deliberately empty, posture relaxed. This openness was the closest thing to a hug they could handle, even after weeks of living under the same roof.

"You sounded mad just now. What's up?"

Rusty pressed his lips together and took on that "we're both adults here" expression he had.

"I need you to write me an excuse for not doing an assignment. I don't think it's in my best interests."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Can you tell me about this while you tear up some lettuce and wash it?"

"Sure."

Her heart twinged. He still felt safest when she needed him to do some sort of task, have one more sign that he was worth keeping around. She got a cucumber, two tomatoes, and an avocado out of the refrigerator and took out the cutting board. They began working side by side in the small kitchen.

"See, they're doing this family history project for English, right? We're supposed to gather our 'family photos' together." His voice dripped sarcasm. "Then we have to do a timeline, with at least two paragraphs about each picture. Maybe for the part about who's had the biggest impact in my life, I can use the serial killer's mug shot, right?"

Sharon's eyes swam as she blinked hard. She started to turn away, then caught herself. What she was feeling was real. He deserved to see that.

"I see why you're angry, Rusty. And I bet you're not the only student in the class who's thinking like this tonight."

He stopped tearing lettuce leaves and looked thoughtful, the angry glare fading from his eyes. "Yeah…I know there's kids in there who've been through their parents' divorce. The girl who sits next to me in History lost her dad in Afghanistan two years ago."

She shook her head. What would her children have said? Would they have taken a shot of Santa Anita Race Park and written two tidy paragraphs about the semester their father had lost their tuition there?

It wasn't fair, kids trying to get over their pain having it dragged up again to learn paragraph structure and narrative voices….

_Narrative voices._

Stories.

Fiction...She smiled as the thoughts formed in her mind.

"I have an idea. Dry your hands…I want you to look some things up on my computer."

His wary, hopeful look almost made her touch his shoulder in reassurance. Maybe someday soon, they'd get there.

.

Two weeks later, the binder lay next to his breakfast plate, the cover page a bright abstract with chiseled letters across the front: _In a Fair World_, _by Rusty Beck._

Sharon flipped through it again like she was seeing it for the first time, although it had been on the computer desk every evening since she had run the idea past the therapist assigned to his social worker's DCFS unit.

Next to a stock picture of a couple in their late twenties, a baby in the woman's arms, was the caption,

_In a fair world, my mom and dad would have worked for a few years after college, and then had me._

There were two neat paragraphs about how a baby would have been welcomed into a loving family.

She flipped to the next page, a toddler playing with a set of blocks, a woman sitting on the floor next to him. She had found that on a site advertising carpeting.

_In a fair world, my mother would have stayed home with me for a couple of years, so I'd have a good, safe start in life._

More paragraphs about toddlers, favorite toys, and bedtime stories.

There were three pages for schools: one elementary, one middle, one high school. They had taken a shot of his school last week.

_In a fair world, I would have stayed in one school and made friends. I'd have friends I'd known since kindergarten._

She flipped through the pages of sports teams, vacation spots, things Rusty said he would have liked to do and places he said he would have liked to go, if his mother hadn't been an addict and his father had known he had a son.

If he hadn't spent what should have been his sophomore year hustling as a street treat to get through another day, another week.

Towards the end, he had included a picture of the outside of her (_their_) condo.

A picture of the Major Crimes unit, Provenza scowling and Andy trying to hold back a grin.

A shot of her, case folders in hand, hair flying as she had turned at his "Sharon! Over here," shout just before he clicked the button.

He hadn't let her see his work on the last page yet, but now, he stood by her shoulder as she kept turning pages.

_The world is getting fairer now, so this is my home._

_The world is getting fairer now, so these are the adults I can count on._

She swallowed hard, the text blurring, and felt a tissue shoved against her hand.

"Hurry up, okay? I don't want to be late." She felt him touch her shoulder so lightly, so quickly, she could have said it was her imagination if she'd wanted to. She drew a deep breath as she read the last caption.

_The world is getting fairer now, so I have somebody who takes care of me and helps me._

_She believes in changing things that aren't fair._

_Her name is Sharon._


End file.
